S van der Merwe: Ethical Leadership through Women and Men
Conference

12 September 2006

Ladies and gentlemen,
Distinguished guests,

Introduction

It is a privilege to be here this morning at the opening of the conference
on Ethical Leadership through Women and Men and to share some thoughts on the
subject.

Looking at the expertise collected in this room, I am sure that we will be
able to come up with proposals on how to address some of the most vexing
challenges that we face together as government and the people of South Africa
today.

As South Africans one of our strength has been and continues to be our
ability to engage in dialogue to deal with our problems. I believe that this
dialogue will take us closer to realising our vision of building a united and
democratic South Africa.

Issues of ethical leadership remain critical to the process of consolidating
our democracy. During the many years that South Africans and indeed many
nations of the world have struggled to gain their liberation the goal has
always been about the attainment of freedom and justice, of the rejection of
imposed forms of authority, of racial and gender domination.

The freedoms and rights that generations of South Africans have fought for
are at the core of our democracy. Indeed our democratic agenda is predicated on
the transformation of our society from an unjust and divided one to a just and
equal South Africa where all its peoples live in peace and prosperity.

In defining the values in our society we use as a measure, the quality and
ethical standards of our leadership. Does our leadership promote the ideals of
a just and equal society and create a South Africa that belongs to all that
live in it? And do our leaders demonstrate in their actions the values that
come from our shared beliefs based on our collective past and our common
destiny?

First we need to define our common values.

After the first democratic elections in 1994, the new government began the
task of building a new nation and healing the wounds of our past. In one sense
this endeavour was to a large extent about the building of common values upon
which our new society would be based.

Values are essentially enduring beliefs that influence attitudes, actions
and choices we make as a people and as a nation. Ethical leadership entails the
practical implementation of these values.

Our Constitution

In the making of our Constitution we have agreed upon a common set of values
against which our leaders can be measured. The mark of an ethical leader in the
context of our discussion is, therefore, whether such a leader leads and lives
by these values. In the post-apartheid South Africa there was therefore a
genuine expectation that the new crop of leadership, both men and women, should
be different from their predecessors.

Our transition to democracy and the commitment to resolving our historical
problems through dialogue gave our post-apartheid leadership a moral authority
endorsed by most South Africans. The reverence that our first president
continues to enjoy today, both here and abroad demonstrates the moral character
of our revolution and our democracy, and provides a vision for the South Africa
we aspire to.

Moral and ethical leadership should be concerned with the pursuit for the
rights to freedom, equality, fairness and justice, values that have been fought
for by our past leaders and ordinary people.

The South African Constitution is the embodiment of these values. It is a
collectively negotiated and accepted declaration of our shared values and is
therefore the best guide for us as citizens to use as the standard for our own
and our leader's behaviours and actions.

The preamble of our Constitution states and I quote:

"We, the people of South Africa,
Recognise the injustices of our past,
Honour those who suffered for injustice and freedom in our land,
Respect those who have worked to build and develop our country,
Believe that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our
diversity."

This brief statement unambiguously articulates what the struggle for our
liberation has been and continues to be about, namely the creation of a
sovereign, democratic state founded on the values of human dignity, the
achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms, of
non-racialism and non-sexism.

Therefore, since 1994 the main task of political leadership in this country
has been to transform the state machinery and society by eradicating
discriminatory, immoral and unethical apartheid legislation.

Ethical leadership in government and civil society

However, real change will not be fully attained through transformational
legislation and policies but also through the actions of leaders and the
citizenry in fostering these values.

In his opening of parliament address in February 1999, President Mandela
introduced to us the concept of 'Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP)
of the soul', the need for a value-based society in the attainment of our
development objectives. He also clearly articulated the need for participatory
development by the whole society rather than leaving it to leaders alone. I
quote:

"South African society needs to infuse itself with a measure of discipline,
a work ethic and responsibility for the actions we undertake. Related to this
is the reconstruction of the soul of the nation, the 'RDP of the soul', by this
we mean first and foremost respect for life, pride and self-respect as South
Africans. It means asserting our collective and individual identity as
Africans, committed to the rebirth of the continent, being respectful of other
citizens and honouring women and children of our country who are exposed to
domestic violence and abuse. It means building our schools into communities of
learning and improvement of character. It means mobilising one another and not
merely waiting for government to clean our streets or for funding allocations
to plant trees and tend schoolyards. These are things we need to embrace as a
nation that is nurturing its new patriotism. They constitute an important
environment for bringing up future generations."

This statement recognises that all of us as a society have a critical role
to play in transforming our apartheid legacy and building the kind of society
that we desire. Indeed, one of the strengths of our society is the commitment
to participatory democracy of dealing with the challenges of nation building
through dialogue, accommodation, tolerance and ultimately forgiveness. This is
the legacy that we will leave to our children, the future leaders of this
country.

Real social transformation must be underpinned by a real understanding of
the impact of these laws and policies on the lives of ordinary people.

Recently a discussion document was produced by government entitled, "A
nation in the making - a discussion document on macro-social trends". Here an
analysis was done to seek to answer questions such as how have the material
conditions of South Africans changed in the past decade? What have been the
trends in the organisation of social life? Through what identities do South
Africans define themselves? How to the diverse and overarching identities and
value systems affect their self-worth?

The document is, as I said, a discussion document but it does pose
interesting questions based on facts about the nature of our society and the
effects of policy choices on the South African public.

It concludes:

"What it does show, though, as an aspirations value system is that the
bigger family that is the nation knows that collective survival depends on
successful regulation of social behaviour including elements of the private
space in so far as they bear direct relevance to the social sphere. The State
supported by the system of political organisation is the pre-eminent authority
charged with leading this process and civil society should add to both the
formal and informal mechanisms of social regulation and morality.

It can be argued that there is in our country a dominant collective social
aspiration to fashion a society that cares, an aspiration, informed by the
ideals of equity, compassion for the most vulnerable, gender-sensitivity and
honesty in individual and collective behaviour. These are the ideals that
inform the core values of the Constitution. The truth, however, is that
aspiration and reality do not necessarily, and not always, coincide. Real life
even if it may jar with ideals, influences social behaviour in the here and
now."

Our task then requires conscious individuals determined to propagate humane
values, in government not enticed by arrogance and illicit rewards that power
can bring, in business not mesmerised by the glitter that purely selfish
pursuits can harvest into personal use and in civil society not phased by
mindsets that pour scorn on the humble lifestyle of an honest days' work.

The question of morality has long been part of our post-apartheid discourse.
In a document entitled, "The Moral Renewal of the Nation", published by the
African National Congress (ANC) in 1998 we make the point that:

"The democratic changes of 1994 introduced a major change. The apartheid
system was consigned to history. All countries which have passed through a
major social change to establish new objectives, structures and modes of
behaviour have found this a time of tension. Some seek to inhibit the
development others use it for party political purposes and blatantly immoral
elements come to the surface.

Corruption, criminality, tax evasion, fraud, rape, the abuse of women and
children, drunkenness, extortion and family breakdown much of it touched by
violence are the outward forms of a diseased social climate which affects all
of us. The whole country is passing through a period of transition in which we
are seeking to establish a new and successful modern society. The problems we
experience are not different from those in other societies, but at this
formative stage we intend to do something to ensure that South Africa becomes a
truly moral society."

As a country, even in 2006, we are still undergoing a process of nation
building, which of course has its own challenges that require leaders of strong
ethical and moral character. Our apartheid history has made us acutely aware of
the destructive tendencies that come with unethical and immoral leadership
based on favouritism, victimisation, special interests and racial privilege. In
the end leaders who rely on these create polarisation of the society into
primitive notions of "us versus them". Such leadership festers mistrust and
encourages rule by fear, innuendo and mistrust.

Indeed, transitional periods have a tendency to create space for contending
ideologies to emerge to challenge existing authority. These new transitional
spaces create the opportunities for creative thinking to find new solutions to
problems. Such problems can be dealt with through an open and fair engagement
between those who lead and those who follow. In this regard, again, our culture
of activism and commitment to dialogue becomes very important in overcoming
challenges along the way.

Leaders in both government and civil society have a duty and responsibility
to always lead by example. Values are conveyed and supported not by words but
by deeds. One observer made the point that "all the fine words in the world
about the value of people have no weight beside gestures or actions that
suggest the opposite."

In South Africa we there are a number of initiatives to engage the
population in taking collective responsibility and ownership of ethical issues
in our society. Over the long term ethical leadership that is founded on
ethical values best serves both personal development and the common good.

I remain hopeful that collectively as government and civil society we can
deal with vital problems of the day and craft solutions to them.

I am privileged to have been assigned my current task in foreign affairs.
This is an area that has long been part of our movements' agenda. During the
apartheid years South Africa received support from the international community.
The powerful and influential anti-apartheid movement was mobilised in
solidarity with the South African liberation movement. Through this the role of
ethical and effective leadership extended beyond South Africa's borders. In the
international arena today South Africa continues to play a leadership role in
our region, on our continent and in the world. Our foreign policy agenda is
informed by our domestic policy and the two are mutually reinforcing. Both
domestic and foreign policy are guided by the vision of "a better South Africa
in a better Africa and a better world."

At the time we gained our independence from apartheid in 1994, South Africa
was internationally isolated. One of the key foreign policy challenges facing
our post-apartheid leadership was to build relationships with the world,
relationships that had been damaged by apartheid. In doing so we adopted a
foreign policy agenda based on the principles enshrined in our
Constitution.

In the years since the end of the Cold War there has been much soul
searching amongst the nations of the world about reforming the institutions of
global governance. Key among these is the nature of the structures of global
governance, their inappropriateness to our modern world and the unfairness of a
system based on conditions that existed in the world 60 years ago. There has
been much debate on transforming these institutions with a sharp focus on
addressing important issues of leadership, good governance and international
morality. We have seen this theme carry through in multilateral forums and in
particular in the Security Council of the United Nations.

I have already mentioned the interconnected nature of our domestic and
foreign policies. The universal values which South Africa strives to achieve
are also those to which it aspires for Africa, the south and the rest of the
world. The principles, policies and priorities of democratic South Africa
provide hope not only for the people of South Africa and Africa but also for
the south since they essentially provide hope for humanity as a whole.

We have been at the forefront of this struggle and key to this project is
the transformation of the global institutions of governance, primarily, but not
exclusively the Bretton Woods Institutions and the United Nations (UN). Most of
these institutions were created when many African countries were still ruled by
colonial powers, not yet liberated and now the countries of the south seek to
be regarded as equal members of the international community. One of the major
debates of the past two years has been the reform of the United Nations
Security Council (UNSC) and this matter has not yet been resolved.

Addressing the UN General Assembly on 21 March 2005, the Secretary-General
of the UN, Kofi Annan stated that:

"I urge Member States to make the Security Council more broadly
representative of the international community as a whole as well as of the
geopolitical realities of today.

And I suggest that the renewed Security Council should make clear in a
resolution the principles by which it intends to be guided when deciding
whether to authorise or mandate the use of force."

As developing States, we of course share these views because we believe that
the current membership structure of the Security Council is an anachronism and
needs to be reformed to give equal voice to the people of the world. The way in
which the Security Council is constituted lives up to the maxim that, 'the
strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.'

As you will be aware South Africa has been nominated for a non-permanent
seat on the UNSC for 2007. Security Council membership will present
opportunities including the possibility for South Africa playing an enhanced
role in contributing to the work of the UN in the maintenance of international
peace and security, especially in Africa.

As an elected member, however, we will face formidable challenges and
constraints due amongst other things to the dominance of the five Permanent
members (P5) in the council. South Africa's status as an independent-minded
country with a principled and predictable foreign policy may be challenged by
its participation in potentially questionable decisions of the council that may
run counter to the interests of developing countries.

Because of our commitment to multilateralism, we are committed to the
creation of a just, equal and rules-based international system and adhering to
standards and codes that seek legal protection for the poor, restraints on the
strong.

In this regard, declarations such as the UN declaration on human rights and
the African Union's Human Rights Charter have created a basis for determining
our approach on leadership and good governance.

You will be aware that to demonstrate this commitment, South Africa is
currently undergoing a process reviewing the promotion of democracy and good
political governance as a basis for the reduction of poverty and the attainment
of sustainable development. On our own continent under the auspices of the
African Union (AU), the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) process evaluates
and aims to assist countries in addressing issues of democratic and political
governance, economic management and corporate governance for social and
economic development. Although voluntary, participation by South Africa in the
review process shows the commitment of adhering to international standards and
practices on issues of leadership development and good governance.

In conclusion, to address the question about what ethical leadership means
in today's world, I would like to refer to the declaration of the 2003
Progressive Government Summit Communiqu� which stated among other things
that:

"This century has the potential to bring huge advances in health, in
knowledge, in prosperity and to bring billions of people out of poverty. We are
optimistic that a truly prosperous, inclusive and secure global society is
within our reach. However, realising that potential depends on careful and
concerted action. It depends on the progress we make in further integrating our
economies, societies, regions and communities. And it depends on our success in
standing firm against division within societies against prejudice,
discrimination and inequality and against division at a global level into
competing blocs.

Some will continue to respond by turning inwards to the comforts of old
identities, old ways of thinking and old structures. We believe that new
challenges demand new solutions that combine fiscal responsibility, investment
in citizens and democratic processes.

As progressive governments, we will therefore accelerate our work in
matching imaginative new ideas with practical means of putting them at the
service of the citizens we represent."

The above views express the sentiments by a collective of leaders who had
met to deliberate on matters of significance and consequences as we have today.
The conclusions they drew from their deliberations are indeed instructive about
what we intend to do about the challenges that face us today. Therefore, we
ourselves need to ensure that in the work we are about to undertake, we
understand the following basic principles that we need to adhere to:

* moral character
* ethical values conveyed and supported by deeds
* a legitimate process of engagement based on a common understanding of the
rules of the game and the shared belief to contribute to be building of a
better South Africa, better Africa in a better world.

Thank for you attention and I wish you the best in your discussions.

Issued by: Department of Foreign Affairs
12 September 2006
Source: Department of Foreign Affairs (http://www.dfa.gov.za/)